New Delhi: To regain his party’s national status after convincing win in the Maharashtra assembly election, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar declared plans to contest the Delhi assembly elections in February. During a felicitation function at the NCP office in Delhi on Thursday, Ajit Pawar announced his intention to contest the Delhi assembly elections. At the event, Ajit Pawar also rubbished the opposition’s claims of electoral fraud.
Spelling out his vision for the revival of NCP, Ajit Pawar said, “We need to work harder and fight to achieve success,” while mentioning the party’s loss of national status in April 2023. He also pointed at plans to organise a national convention in Delhi, marking the party’s renewed emphasis on expanding its influence beyond Maharashtra.
Pawar underlined the unity of Mahayuti alliance amid buzz about internal rift after the Maharashtra elections. “We are united. There are no differences,” he pointed out, and added that power-sharing arrangements will be discussed soon.
The Mahayuti alliance, comprising the BJP, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar’s NCP, bagged 235 seats in the Maharashtra assembly elections, breaking the Congress’ record of 222-seat victory in 1972.
‘Opposition blaming EVMs because they didn’t get desired results’
Trashing the allegations of electronic voting machine (EVM) tampering levelled by opposition parties, Ajit Pawar dubbed them as baseless. He stated that the opposition was blaming EVMs because they didn’t get the results they wanted. The NCP leader pointed out that the same EVMs had helped opposition parties win in Punjab, Karnataka, and West Bengal. Ajit Pawar also dismissed calls from Congress and the NCP-SP for a return to ballot paper voting, contending that EVMs had always proven reliable in multiple elections.
Smarting from Maharashtra drubbing, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance had recently raised objections over EVMs and called for a return to ballot papers.
